IRAGINATION

Hi. Yes, I know the next Bass Abyss is taking too long but it is totally worth it.

Here you can watch a video of the upcoming update. I won’t spoil anything so watch it yourself. If you want spoilers then read on.

There are so many changes. Most of them have been bug fixing, but there are two new major features:

– New playable character: Proto Man. He can deflect shots with his shields. Also, I gave him a modified buster, X4 style.

– Bass has two attack modes: Bass Buster and Directional Rapid fire. Yes, just like in Mega Man and Bass or Mega Man 10, on Directional mode Bass can shoot in seven directions. That is a HUGE advantage over the other characters considering he already has a double jump, but it’s too much fun so I really liked this feature even if it makes it too easy to play with him.

The core of this update has been bug fixing, and the results are huge. Months ago I was afraid that I had to live with some bugs but with the new knowledge I’ve acquired during these months, I decided to hunt them down and raise the quality of the engine. Most bugs and annoyances are gone and the game behaves the way you expect

All the major features in this preview are already functional. I just need to fix some little bugs I detected while capturing these clips. Once that is done, I’ll upload the new version!

The moonwalk is off by default. To enable it, got to the Options while playing (Samus only). There’ll be two new switches on the right. One to enable Moonwalk, another one to enable Autofire.

Why Autofire? Well, there’s little point to do the Moonwalk if you can’t autofire, since the move is activated when you hold the Shot key. In Super Metroid, you had autofire on by default, but in order to not break previous player’s game experiences, like spamming missiles, I prefer to make the autofire optional too. You shouldn’t experience any difference in gameplay if you don’t enable any of the new options.

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Note: It seems like I broke the game with a quick update I did this morning. It’s all fixed now. Clear your browser cache and try again.

Let’s enjoy the Bass Abyss levels with new video modes!

Switching to Widescreen

Just access to the venerable Bass Abyss screen as usual. Down there is the combo box where you can select the available video modes. Hit Go and you’re done. A full reload of the page will happen so be sure to not lose any progress mistakenly. For your convenience, you can also switch between the Turbo and Normal speed with the same click.

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Some levels can get very long and exhausting. While the checkpoints are helpful, it’s still not fair to have to deal with lots of enemies and no way to restore health. This is no longer a problem since I’ve upgraded the engine so now energy/health power-ups will be thrown randomly by defeated enemies, Mega Man style.

Some bug fixes

• The scores can be accessed again both through the game and HTML.
• There was a horrible bug with the music transitions in boss battles. It is now fixed.
• Destroyable rocks weren’t exploding. My bad, I forgot to update some tiles in a past upload.
• The road to version 1.0 has begun. I better get started with the final levels of Bass Abyss.

In celebration of Mega Man 9, I decided to add Mega Man to the list of the Bass Abyss characters. Freeze Man was going to be the last character for a good while, and if I ever considered using Mega Man like this, it was going to be as a joke or easter egg, kind of like with Classic Fire Man. But considering that even Capcom can go this retro, I don’t think I’ll get too flamed if I feature this 8-bit version. So, I’m calling him nor Classic Mega Man, neither 8-bit Mega Man. Just Mega Man.

Also as maybe you have noted, I updated Bass Abyss one month ago with a revamped Custom Map section. Now every map I’ve been sent is listed and can be downloaded in-game. No need to copy/paste XML code. You can still do that in the proper tab in the same section. This is very beta and had lots of polishing to do. In the midst of all the stuff I had to do back then I didn’t have time to make a proper update post. So far it’s been performing very well so I expect to expand its features in the future. I checked the stats and I know it’s a lot easier now to try every single map.

Now I’m hunting down many bugs neglected after so many host jumps. Have fun!

Hello. I bring what the header says and many other little tweaks that I’ve been having on hold since last December.

Checkpoints

Well, this is one that I gave a lot of thought after playing Kid Scorpion’s level. They’re really challenging, but also very frustrating to die mid-level after a bad jump. I’ve added checkpoints on some of my longer levels, and hopefully, they won’t be so frustrating anymore.

Bloom effect

I guess many of you have heard the joke about next-gen graphics = bloom. Well, this is more like a tech demo, I put on a test some of the flash filters and managed to get the effect, only for the detriment of the performance of the game, so you’ll get prettier graphics but the game will slow down a lot, at least under my tests. It is disabled by default, but if you want to see it, pause the game, go to the Graphics tab and press the Bloom toggle.

But fear not. I got excellent results playing the game at 256 x 244. It’s small, but the bloom effect didn’t slow down my PC at all.

I’m rather impressed considering this is still Flash 8 and AS2. The promise of better performance sure encourages me to port my engine to AS3 in the future.

Also, Kid Scorpio brings us a new level. Get them at the Custom Maps section.

Update

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I also updated the Bass Abyss level editor to 1.0.1. It includes the checkpoint tile. Also, a new stage enemy that I’ve been having on hold since December too. I think I’ll go this route, adding enemies to the level editor, so authors can give them use sooner than me considering my little free time.